Siena College
PHIL 101 Philosophy and the Human Being Two sections per semester
PHIL 315 Ethics of Science and Technology Spring 2025/23, Fall 2023
PHIL 285 Philosophy and Gender Fall 2024
PHIL AR1 (Independent Study) Philosophy and Disability Spring 2024
PHIL AR1 (Independent Study) Biomedical Ethics Spring 2025
PHIL HNRS 400 (Honors Thesis Supervision) Academic Year 2024-2025
University of Toronto
PHL 381 Ethics and Medical Research Spring 2023
PHLC07 Death and Dying (Bioethics focus, 3rd year course) Summer 2022
PHL 243 Philosophy of Human Sexuality Summer 2020/21
It has been my pleasure to design and propose three new classes between 2023-2025—each approved by the Siena College Board of Instruction (BOI) as of March 2025, and now included in the course catalogue. I have included the course descriptions below:
PHIL 316 Biomedical Ethics: This course explores the application of philosophical ethics to three domains within biomedicine and healthcare: clinical ethics, research ethics, and population-level ethics. Core topics may include: the distinction between the role of clinical practitioner and the role of biomedical researcher, the duties and obligations that clinical practitioners owe to their patients, the duties and obligations that medical researchers owe to their trial participants, global health disparities and population-level healthcare justice. This course will incorporate multiple normative frameworks to analyze these topics (e.g. consequentialism, deontology, care ethics, role-morality), with a special emphasis on how the practical application of philosophical ethics to biomedicine and healthcare can promote social justice.
PHIL 317 Sexual Ethics: This course explores the ethical dimensions of human sexuality from a philosophical perspective. Respecting ourselves and others in our capacity as sexual agents can come with distinctive ethical ideals and constraints. Core topics of this class include things like–the nature of autonomy, consent, love, care, and harm–specific to human sexuality. Philosophers have come to different conclusions about the nature of these notions, and special emphasis will be put upon the practical consequences of adopting different frameworks and whether such consequences would result in a just and equitable world. We will address questions like: are sexual desires morally evaluable or does moral evaluation only apply to action? What conditions make consent possible, and what conditions make consent impossible? What is the difference between flirting and ‘being a creep’? Is pornography intrinsically exploitative? Metaphysical, epistemological and moral issues will all be raised, along with the ever-relevant question about how to put our principles into action.
PHIL 287 Philosophy and Disability: This course explores fundamental questions in the Philosophy of Disability. What is the nature of disability? What counts as a disability? How do disabilities relate to our well-being and flourishing? What is ableism? Can theories of disability be inherently ableist? Throughout the course we will consider an expansive set of human experience—chronic disabilities, congenital disabilities, acquired disabilities, physical disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, cognitive disabilities—and consider how this diversity of experience interacts with, and contributes to, our shared social world. The course will also emphasize topics in disability-related justice and philosophical ethics across multiple domains of life (e.g. healthcare, biomedical research, criminal justice, education).